VMware ESXi 7.0 U3o macOS Unlocker & OEM BIOS integrated network card driver and NVMe driver (integrated driver version)
ESXi 7 U3 Standard Edition integrates Intel network card, Realtek USB network card and NVMe driver
Please visit the original link: https://sysin.org/blog/vmware-esxi-7-u3-sysin/ to view the latest version. Original work, please keep the source when reprinting.
Author homepage: sysin.org
2023-09-29 Update: 7.0U3o adds 22 new server models (Dell, HPE and Lenovo) and multiple drivers to support vSphere Quick Boot, as well as 71 functional problem fixes. It is a "major update" and is recommended. Run the 7.0 series to apply this update immediately . It's too long to go into detail here, so please refer to the official release notes.
2023-08-12, ESXi 7.0U3n UI Fix, fixes the problem of being unable to "send key values" to the "guest operating system" in the virtual machine console.
2023-07-07, ESXi 7.0U3n was released, and this site was updated simultaneously.
On 2023-05-03, ESXi 7.0U3m was released, which solved the problem of ESXi hosts losing network connectivity under certain environments and specific conditions.
On 2023-03-31, ESXi 7.0U3l was released. This version contains 59 functional fixes and 2 security fixes (see "Update Notes" for details). It is a "major update". It is recommended that users running the 7.0 series update this version immediately.
On 2023-02-28, a UI fix version was released. This version solves the problem: VMware Host Client cannot attach an existing virtual disk (VMDK) to a virtual machine.
This is a routine update for the ESXi 7.0U3k Patch released on 2023-02-21 (customized by this site), with no new features.
This is a routine update for the ESXi 7.0U3j Patch released on 2023-01-31 (customized by this site), with no new features.
This is a routine update for the ESXi 7.0U3i Patch released on 2022-12-08 (customized by this site), and there are no new features.
This routine update for ESXi 7.0U3g released on 2022.09.01 has limited support for Intel 12th generation CPUs and adds an ESX-OSData 8G version.
2022.08.10 Updated ESXi 7.0U3f upon request, no changes to the driver itself. Tip: ESXi 7.0 Update 3f (official standard version) now includes all Intel I219 device drivers from the Community Networking Driver Fling.
We know that VMware has already released the patch for ESXi 7.0U3e on June 14, but the official ISO image is not available yet. It seems that it is not ready to be released? Recently, readers and friends are always asking when U3e will be updated. Today is already July, so without waiting for the official announcement, I will release the ISO of U3e first.
ESXi 7.0 Update 3d was released on March 29, 2022, ISO build 19482537, which added support for vSphere Quick Boot on multiple models of Dell servers. It also included patches to resolve some known issues. See Release Notes for details .
Following November 20 (2021), the VMware vSphere team announced that it has removed the download of ESXi 7 Update 3 from the official website due to product defects (for details, see: Product Defects: Do not use ESXi 7 Update 3 in a production environment ), December VMware re-released vSphere 7 U3c on the 14th, but the official Release Notes are not available.
2022.01.27 VMware re-released U3c again, with Build number 19193900. Release Notes show that it mainly fixes known bugs in the U3 version and adds security updates. This time it has been released to the public, replacing U2a and becoming the official recommended version.
2022.07.01 Updated ESXi 7.0 U3e, the driver version is the same as U3d mentioned below.
2022.06.06 Updated ESXi 7.0 U3d, updated USB Network Native Driver for ESXi v1.10 (May 24, 2022) This version supports ESXi 7.0 Update 3c & 3d, solves a PSOD problem, and does not add new hardware.
2022.03.29 Update Community Networking Driver for ESXi version 1.2.7.
2022.02.24 Update: EFI64 fix.
2022.01.30 Updated ESXi 7.0 U3c, other features remain unchanged.
2021.11.13 Update the following driver versions to support ESXi 7.0 U3:
Community Networking Driver for ESXi Fling v1.2.2；
USB Network Native Driver for ESXi v1.9；
Community NVMe Driver for ESXi Fling v1.2。
2021.09.13 Update OEM BIOS to support Windows Server 2022.
2021.08.31 Update: Integrated "vmkusb-nic-fling" and "nvme-community", now only one image.
2021.06.16 Update: Integrate community-networking-driver v1.2.
General Features Overview
In addition to the above-mentioned increase in driver compatibility, this image mainly adds the following features:
- macOS Unlocker: Unlocker 4 from GitHub now supports macOS Monterey
- OEM BIOS: Use the community’s most popular OEM BIOS/EFI64, now supported on Windows Server 2022
- LegacyCPU support, allowing installation of ESXi 7.0 on older, unsupported CPUs
- The ESX-OSData volume size is modified to 4G to solve the problem that the default installation of ESXi 7.0 takes up too much disk space (more than 142GB)
- Limited support for Intel 12th and 13th generation CPU architecture, can boot and run normally (only integrated driver version)
Run macOS Monterey directly
ESXi supports the creation of macOS virtual machines by default, but this feature is only enabled on Apple Mac hardware. This version unlocks support for macOS virtualization and can directly run macOS virtual machines on any non-Mac hardware.
⚠️ There is a huge difference between the macOS virtual machine and the macOS experience on Mac. It is only for experience. The only platform to unlock the superior performance of macOS is a Mac powered by an Apple M chip.
Directly create a new virtual machine and select "Apple macOS 12 (64-bit)" as the operating system to install and start normally.
Running macOS Monterey 12.
Attached:
- macOS Big Sur bootable iso download: macOS Big Sur 11.7.10 (20G1427) Boot ISO original bootable image
- macOS Monterey bootable iso download: macOS Monterey 12.7 (21G816) Boot ISO original bootable image
VMware_Dell_2.6_BIOS-EFI
The latest OEM BIOS/EFIs from the community, now updated to support Windows Server 2022.
BIOS.440 & EFI64 - Dell 2.6 OEM BIOS: NT 6.0 (Vista/Server 2008), NT 6.1 (7/Server 2008 R2), NT 6.2 (Server 2012), NT 6.3 (Server 2012 R2), NT 10.0 (Server 2016/Server 2019/Server 2022)
Windows Server OVF series:
- Windows Server 2008 R2 OVF, updated Jul 2023 (sysin) - VMware Virtual Machine Template
- Windows Server 2016 OVF, updated Jul 2023 (sysin) - VMware Virtual Machine Template
- Windows Server 2019 OVF, updated Sep 2023 (sysin) - VMware Virtual Machine Template
- Windows Server 2022 OVF, updated Sep 2023 (sysin) - VMware Virtual Machine Template
Other OVFs: CentOS 8 x86_64 OVF (sysin) - VMware virtual machine template , Ubuntu 20.04 LTS x86_64 OVF (sysin) - VMware virtual machine template , please search for "OVF" on this site for more information.
Supports older CPUs that are not officially supported
After modifying the startup parameters, it can be installed normally on servers with officially unsupported CPUs.
According to VMware vSphere 7.0 Release Notes , the following CPUs are no longer supported (ESXi 7.0 cannot be installed or upgraded)
Comparing the processors supported by vSphere 6.7, vSphere 7.0 no longer supports the following processors:
- Intel Family 6, Model = 2C (Westmere-EP)
- Intel Family 6, Model = 2F (Westmere-EX)
The author installed and ran well (sysin) on a server released in 2010: HP DL 380 G7, Intel® Xeon® CPU E5606
Note: This screenshot is from version 7.0
ESX-OSData volume size modified to 4G
Starting with ESXi 7.0, the disk space requirements have changed:
- 8G SD card + 32G local disk
- 32G local disk
- 142G or larger local disk
Usually we install ESXi on a local disk that is hundreds of GB or larger. The system partition disk space will occupy more than 142GB. The entire system partition (kernel parameter: systemMediaSize) requires 138GB and more than 4GB of free space. The ESX-OSData volume is about It requires 120GB of disk space, which may be a waste when disk space is tight. After modification, the problem of insufficient disk space can be solved for machines started with 8G SD cards (especially for personal experiments, without wasting too much storage capacity).
Figure: The new partition architecture in vSphere 7, only the system boot partition is fixed at 100 MB, the rest of the partitions are dynamic, which means that the partition size will be determined based on the boot media size.
Starting with vSphere 7.0 Update 1c, you can use ESXi installer boot options systemMediaSizeto limit the size of the system storage partition on the boot media. If your system has a smaller footprint and doesn't require the maximum 128 GB system storage size, you can limit it to a minimum of 32 GB. systemMediaSizeThe parameters accept the following values:
- min (32 GB for single disk or embedded server)
- small (64 GB, for servers with at least 512 GB RAM)
- default（128 GB）
- max (consumes all available space, for multi-terabyte servers)
Even if the value is set to min, the storage capacity required is still much larger than that of the previous version.
Limited support for Intel 12th and 13th generation CPU architecture
ESXi is designed for data center virtualization and is often run on desktop PCs during testing and learning.
It is reported that ESXi 7.0 currently does not support Intel 12th generation CPUs, and PSOD will occur during normal booting. This time, by loading kernel parameters, Intel 12th generation CPU can be limitedly supported, that is, it can be booted and installed normally, and can also run normally (sysin), but the two cores cannot be distinguished or recognized. The hyperthreading of the P core cannot be recognized, such as i5 -1240P with 4P + 8E appears as 16 cores in the desktop system, but is only recognized as 12 cores in ESXi. As for how virtual machines are allocated on P and E, issues such as performance differences need to be shared by readers in practice.
It has been verified to support Intel 12th generation CPU, and 13th generation CPU has also been verified many times. We look forward to your feedback.
The 12th generation Intel Core desktop processor is composed of N performance cores (P core, Performance-core) and N energy efficiency cores (E core, Efficient-core). The hybrid architecture of performance cores and energy efficiency cores is the 12th generation Core The biggest innovation of the processor. This architecture is also commonly known as PE large and small cores.
After successfully installing ESXi on Intel 12th and 13th generation CPUs, you need to further configure the kernel parameters. Please contact the author for details.
Platform compatibility
Two major platforms for building Nano Datacenter
It is very common to use VMware vSphere as a virtualization platform in test environments or home labs. The author prefers to use the term Nano Datacenter to refer to this environment. There are usually two major platforms for building Nano Datacenter: Apple Mac mini and Intel NUC.
Figure: NUC 8 compared to Mac mini 2018 (picture source from the Internet)
Here we take a look at the current VMware ESXi 7.0 U3 support for the two platforms.
Apple Mac
Apple Mac mini can be found in VMware official HCL detailed information (sysin):
You can see that Mac mini (Late 2012) is Macmini6,2, Mac mini (Late 2014) is Macmini7,1, and Mac mini 2018 is Macmini8,1. All three models are officially supported and can be installed directly using the standard version of ESXi. . (Mac mini (M1, 2020) is apparently not supported yet, and ESXi Arm Edition may follow in the future.)
Note: Due to the mechanism of the Apple T2 security chip, the 2008 Mac min cannot use the built-in nvme ssd to run ESXi, and can only be started by connecting an external PCIe or USB storage device through the Thunderbolt 3 interface.
- Local NVMe storage is not supported by ESXi. Limited Thunderbolt 3 (TB3) support enabled. Hot-add or removal and passthrough with TB3 connected devices are not supported. ESXi can be installed/booted on USB flash drive or on TB3 connected storage devices (e.g., PCIe NVMe Adapter, PCIe M.2 SSD, USB etc.,)
Figure: NUC 9 compared to Mac mini 2018 (picture source from the Internet)
Intel NUC is not in the official support list, so if you want to update an existing system, please be extra careful. This is not an officially supported platform. The customized image provided by the author is recommended for new installations.
ESXi 7.0 U3 ships with a new ne1000 driver that, according to VMware experts, has no changes to NUC compatibility compared to the previous version. Compatibility is as follows:
- Compatible with 10th generation NUC and all previous products, except the Intel I219-V(6) network adapter used in 8th generation NUC [Bean Canyon] still requires community-networking-driver.
- For 11th generation NUC, if you use a 2.5G network card, you still need to use community-networking-driver.
USB Nic Fling has built a compatible version of 7.0 U3. USB external network cards can now be used. This image has been integrated.
Intel NUC
This image integrated network card driver is mainly for the following NUCs. If your NUC is a model supported by the built-in driver, you can directly use the standard ESXi image (of course, this version can also be used universally).
ESXi 7.0 on 5th-9th Generation Intel NUC:
ESXi 7.0 can be installed smoothly on 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th generation NUCs. Drivers for all onboard NICs (I218-LM, I219-LM, I219-V and I210-AT) can be found in the image. Drivers for NVMe devices and any SATA AHCI controller are also available without any customization. ESXi 7.0 Update 1 now includes NIC drivers for Intel NUC 10.
ESXi 7.0 U3 integrates Community Network Driver for 8th Gen Bean Canyon / 11th Gen NUC, the following models:
- NUC8i7BEH/NUC8i7BEK (Intel Core i7-8559U - 4 Core, up to 4.5 GHz)
- NUC8i5BEH/NUC8i5BEK (Intel Core i5-8259U - 4 Core, up to 3.8 GHz)
- NUC8i3BEH/NUC8i3BEK (Intel Core i3-8109U - 2 Core, up to 3.6 GHz)
- 11th Gen NUC (NUC11PAQi7, NUC11PAHi7, NUC11PAKi7, NUC11PAQi5, NUC11PAHi5, NUC11PAKi5, NUC11PAHi3, NUC11PAKi3, NUC11TNHv70L, NUC11TNHv7, NUC11TNHv50L, NUC11TNHv5, NUC11TNKv7, NUC11TNKv5, NUC11TNHi70Q, NUC11TNHi70L, NUC11TNHi7, NUC11TNHi50W, NUC11TNHi50L, NUC11TNHi5, NUC11TNHi30P, NUC11TNHi30L, NUC11TNHi3, NUC11TNKi7, NUC11TNKi5, NUC11TNKi3)
- Also suitable for similar products in NUC style with 11th Gen Intel CPU and 2.5GBps network adapter (sysin)
Intel NUC 12 compatibility issues
The Intel NUC 12 Extreme includes 1x 2.5GbE (Intel I225-LM, only available on i9 models), and 1x 10GbE (Marvell AQC113). The 2.5GbE network port requires Community Networking Driver for ESXi Fling (at least v.1.2.5) according to the driver developer. This version (v1.2.5) was not released at that time. Now the driver has been released v1.2.7 and should be able to support it. Well, Marvell's 10GbE (temporarily) does not have an ESXi driver and can only be used through pass-through to Windows VM.
Because the new architecture of 12th generation CPU includes P core and E core, which is not yet supported by ESXi, PSOD (Purple Screen of Death) will appear when booting ESXi, and a message about "Fatal CPU mismatch on feature" will appear. Fortunately, this problem can be solved by disabling the CPU consistency check (sysin) that ESXi performs during its boot process. Starting from this version, this configuration has been added by default to support Intel 12th generation CPUs.
In fact, this customized version has the same compatibility with Intel NUC 12 and 13 and ESXi 8.0. For details, please refer to: VMware ESXi 8.0U1c macOS Unlocker & OEM BIOS integrated network card driver and NVMe driver (integrated driver version) .
Integrated driver
Integrated Intel network card driver
ESXi 7.0 U3 integrates Community Network Driver for 8th Gen Bean Canyon / 11th Gen NUC, because now the two isos are combined into one, and there is no need to distinguish them.
Mar 15, 2022 - v1.2.7
Net-Community-Driver_1.2.7.0-1vmw.700.1.0.15843807_19480755.zip
md5: cd505cfc2e435510b2e23e87870e4822
What’s New:
- Support for additional Intel I225 devices with any PHY ID
- Support for new Intel I226-K devices with any PHY ID
- Fixed potential deadlock in changing MTU
- Fixed potential RX hang in device layer ops
- Fixed potential PHY reset failure
2021-03-15, Community Networking Driver for ESXi version 1.2.7 system requirements and supported network cards are as follows:
- VMware ESXi 7.0 (x86) or newer is required (sysin)
- Any PCIe network adapters with VID/PID listed below are supported
igc-community:
| Vendor | Chipset | VendorID | DeviceID |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intel | Ethernet Controller I225-LM | 0x8086 | 0x15f2 |
| Intel | Ethernet Controller I225-V | 0x8086 | 0x15f3 |
| Intel | Ethernet Controller I225-IT(2) | 0x8086 | 0x0d9f |
| Intel | Ethernet Controller I225-I | 0x8086 | 0x15f8 |
| Intel | Ethernet Controller I225-K | 0x8086 | 0x3100 |
| Intel | Ethernet Controller I225-K(2) | 0x8086 | 0x3101 |
| Intel | Ethernet Controller I225-LMvP(2) | 0x8086 | 0x5502 |
| Intel | Ethernet Controller I226-K | 0x8086 | 0x5504 |
| Intel | Ethernet Controller I226-LM | 0x8086 | 0x125b |
| Intel | Ethernet Controller I226-V | 0x8086 | 0x125c |
| Intel | Ethernet Controller I226-IT | 0x8086 | 0x125d |
| Intel | Ethernet Controller I220-V | 0x8086 | 0x15f7 |
| Intel | Ethernet Controller I221-V | 0x8086 | 0x125e |
e1000-community:
(now available in ESXi 7.0 Update 3f and newer)
| Vendor | Chipset | VendorID | DeviceID |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (6) I219-LM | 0x8086 | 0x15bd |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (6) I219-V | 0x8086 | 0x15be |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (7) I219-LM | 0x8086 | 0x15bb |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (7) I219-V | 0x8086 | 0x15bc |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (10) I219-LM | 0x8086 | 0x0d4e |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (10) I219-V | 0x8086 | 0x0d4f |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (11) I219-LM | 0x8086 | 0x0d4c |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (11) I219-V | 0x8086 | 0x0d4d |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (12) I219-LM | 0x8086 | 0x0d53 |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (12) I219-V | 0x8086 | 0x0d55 |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (13) I219-LM | 0x8086 | 0x155b |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (13) I219-V | 0x8086 | 0x155c |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (14) I219-LM | 0x8086 | 0x15f9 |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (14) I219-V | 0x8086 | 0x15fa |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (15) I219-LM | 0x8086 | 0x15f4 |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (15) I219-V | 0x8086 | 0x15f5 |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (16) I219-LM | 0x8086 | 0x1a1e |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (17) I219-V | 0x8086 | 0x1a1f |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (17) I219-LM | 0x8086 | 0x1a1c |
| Intel | Ethernet Connection (17) I219-V | 0x8086 | 0x1a1d |
USB network card compatibility
On May 24, 2022, the USB Network Native Driver for ESXi Fling has been updated to v1.10, which mainly adds support for ESXi 7.0 Update 3c & 3d!
- Added support for ESXi 7.0 Update 3c & 3d
- Resolve a PSOD issue
| Vendor | Chipset | VendorID | DeviceID |
|---|---|---|---|
| AQUANTIA | AQC111U | 0xe05a | 0x20f4 |
| AQUANTIA | Aquantia Pacific | 0x2eca | 0xc101 |
| ASIX | AX88179 | 0x0b95 | 0x1790 |
| ASIX | AX88178a | 0x0b95 | 0x178a |
| CISCO LINKSYS | RTL8153 | 0x13b1 | 0x0041 |
| DLINK | AX88179 | 0x2001 | 0x4a00 |
| INSYDE SOFTWARE CORP | Insyde Software Corp. | 0x0b1f | 0x03ee |
| LENOVO | RTL8153 | 0x17ef | 0x3062 |
| LENOVO | RTL8153 | 0x17ef | 0x3069 |
| LENOVO | RTL8153 | 0x17ef | 0x720a |
| LENOVO | AX88179 | 0x17ef | 0x304b |
| LENOVO | RTL8153 | 0x17ef | 0x7205 |
| NVIDIA | RTL8153 | 0x0955 | 0x09ff |
| Qualcomm | THAT | 0x0b05 | 0x1976 |
| Qualcomm | THAT | 0x1A56 | 0x3100 |
| REALTEK | RTL8152 | 0x0bda | 0x8152 |
| REALTEK | RTL8153 | 0x0bda | 0x8153 |
| REALTEK | RTL8156 | 0x0bda | 0x8156 |
| REALTEK | RTL8153 | 0x045e | 0x07c6 |
| SITECOMEU | AX88179 | 0x0df6 | 0x0072 |
| SUPERMICRO | Supermicro computer Inc | 0x15d9 | 0x1b83 |
| TP-LINK | RTL8153 | 0x2357 | 0x0601 |
| TRENDNET | AQC111U | 0xe05a | 0x20f4 |
Integrated NVMe driver
2021.11.10，Community NVMe Driver for ESXi 更新，可适用于最新的 ESXi 7.0 Update 3，并支持以下存储设备：
Non-Apple NVMe:
- VMware ESXi 7.0 (x86) or newer is required
- Any NVMe storage devices with VID/PID listed below are supported
| Vendor | VendorID | DeviceID |
|---|---|---|
| ADATA | 0x1cc1 | 0x8201 |
| Micro/Crucial | 0xc0a9 | 0x2263 |
| Silicon Motion | 0x126f | 0x2262 |
NVMe 驱动定制版本
可以增加已经被 ESXi 7.0 弃用，但是可以验证在 ESXi 6.5 或 6.7 中受支持的 NVMe 驱动。此项需要额外定制。
ESXi 版本的更新，总是伴随着部分硬件被弃用，通常是在大版本中，当然也可能在某些 Update 版本中。只要能验证在旧版中（6.5 或 6.7 的任意版本）受支持，在 7.0 系列版本中就有机会获得支持。这些可能是一些消费品牌的 SSD，当然也包括数据中心级 SSD。
如果您的 NVMe SSD 从未在 ESXi 的任何版本中获得支持，这些通常是一些非主流的消费品牌 SSD，同样也无法获得支持（除非产品供应商提供驱动）。
已知成功案例（ESXi 7.0 已经弃用，现在可定制获得支持）：
- HP EX920
- HP EX950
- ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro
常见问题解答 (FAQ)
镜像基于官方原版，内置 60 天试用许可，驱动来自 VMware 及其合作伙伴公开的免费发行包，技术参数修改参考官方文档或者来自（开源）社区的分享。
1️⃣ 该镜像不支持 UEFI Secure Boot。常规 UEFI 引导不受影响。同时建议禁用 TPM。
2️⃣ 不支持通过 vSphere Lifecycle Manager 导入镜像。
3️⃣ 更新官方 Patch bundle，将恢复原始状态，定制功能失效。
4️⃣ 如何更新版本？正确的升级方法是使用新版 iso 启动，选择 “Upgrade ESXi，preserve VMFS datastore”，参看截图。
5️⃣ 不建议使用不同的定制版交叉升级，可能升级失败或者出现异常。
6️⃣ 该镜像仅供个人学习和研究使用，请遵循原产品使用协议，违者后果自负。
7️⃣ macOS 13 Blank OVF - 在 ESXi 8.0 中运行 macOS Ventura 的简单方式
8️⃣ 平台兼容性除了新增的部分驱动，其他请参照 VMware Compatibility Guide。
更新说明
VMware ESXi 7.0 Update 3o | 28 SEP 2023 | Build 22348816
2023-09-29 更新：7.0U3o 新增了 22 个服务器机型（Dell、HPE 和 Lenovo）和多个驱动对 vSphere Quick Boot 的支持，以及 71 个功能问题修复，属于 ”重大更新“，建议已经运行 7.0 系列立刻应用此更新。篇幅太长，不再详述，请参看官方发行说明。
下载地址
ESXi 8.0 集成驱动版已发布，请访问：
2023-09-29 更新 ESXi 7.0 U3o，驱动版本与之前相同。
提示：现在不公开分享，请访问原文链接查看获取方式，谢谢。
- Baidu network disk link: https://sysin.org/blog/vmware-esxi-7-u3-sysin/
- 22 new server models (Dell, HPE, and Lenovo) and multiple drivers have been added to support vSphere Quick Boot, and 71 functional issues have been fixed.
For standard version and manufacturer customized version, please visit:
For the official original version, please visit:
For the previous version, please visit:
New version has been released : VMware ESXi 8.0U2 macOS Unlocker & OEM BIOS integrated network card driver and NVMe driver (integrated driver version)
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